Removing the Gen4 Intake Silencer

From Taurus Car Club Maintenance and Modification Wiki

1) Raise the vehicle and remove the driver's side wheel. I think you can figure this out... (You do not have to take the wheel off to make this modification, but it does make it a little bit easier.)

2) Remove the driver's side fender well cover. This is pretty self explanitory. It's held up mostly by little plastic clips. Yank these out and maybe remove a few bolts and it should come right out.

3) Unbolt the silencer from the fender wall and remove. This picture was taken crouched down looking toward the front of the car from the driver's side. Up high (marked in red) is the area where the silencer is located. Its black and kind of a rounded box shape. In this picture, it has already been removed. The blue circle is one of the two horns and the yellow arrow points toward the rear of the car.

4) Replace the fender well cover and and all the snaps. Just like step 2 only in reverse. Pretty easy. *Note: Before you put the fender well cover back on, you might want to crank that bad boy up and listen to the intake suck air. Have someone mash the throttle a bit and feel the air getting sucked in... Not too close those, or that'll take a finger! =)

5) That's It! Enjoy the few extra horsepower and the nice intake sound. Toss a K&N or other high-flow panel filter in your air box to get even more out of this mod.



The non existent Gen 4.5 intake silencer. (2004-2007 Models)

If you have a 2004-2007 model car, from what I've heard/seen you may not have an intake silencer. If you would like to check, it is a very simple process.
This will eliminate the confusion between the Gen 4 and the Gen 4.5 intake systems.

OK, so here are pics of a Gen 4.5 wheel well.

To get here you need jack up your car and take off your front driver's side wheel. Then you need to take out the black rubber wheel well cover closest to the front of the car. After that you should be able to see what the first picture shows.

Circled in Red is the intake pipe. If you see this pipe you DO NOT have an intake silencer. Unless you want Warm Air Intake and sluggish response, DO NOT remove this pipe. This IS NOT the intake silencer. There is no intake silencer. In this picture half of the original pipe is cut off. The green circle marks where the end of the pipe would be screwed in.

This is what the original pipe looks like removed from the car:


If you have taken this out of your car, you should put it back in. The louder noise from the intake with no pipe is because the air is being sucked in from the engine bay, right in front of you. It makes the same amount of noise in the wheel well. Keeping it out won't harm the engine, its just less efficient.

This is what the air box looks like with the intake pipe shown above:

This is what it looks like without. This setup sucks air in from the hot engine bay. AKA: WAI or Warm air intake.


So all in all, If you remove this pipe you won't hurt your engine. The intake is much louder but all it does it suck in hot air. If you keep the pipe, you keep the stock CAI or Cold Air Intake. The pipe sucks in air from the wheel well where it is cooler.
Now you can decide to keep it or not.

A word of advice: If you take out the pipe, it is a huge PITA to get back in. I had to take out my battery and the battery mount to wiggle it back in. Then I just cut the end off to make it easier.

Best wishes.
-Ian
AKA: eyespie
2005 Taurus SE Vulcanator